RRUFA minutes – July 2015

RRUFA July Monthly Meeting Minutes

July 14, 2015

LIC Centre for Dialogue

Present:

Niels Agger-Gupta Geoff Archer   Jo Axe Brian Belcher  
Geoffrey Bird   David Black Judith Blanchette   Tony Boydell  
Elizabeth Childs   Kenneth Christie Robin Cox   Ann Dale  
Audrey Dallimore   Matt Dodd   Juana Du   Catherine Etmanski  
Lois Fearon   Joshua Guilar   Doug Hamilton   Brigitte Harris
Ingrid Kajzer-Mitchell   Julia Jahanzoosi   Frances Jorgensen Leslie King  
Richard Kool Charles Krusekopf Zhenyi Li   Ron Lindstrom
Chris Ling   Will Low   Eva Malisius Kathleen Manion
Virginia McKendry   Will Meredith   Robert Mittelman   Jonathan Moran  
Terry Mughan   Jessica Mussell   Mickie Noble   Eileen Piggot-Irvine  
Terry Power   Siomonn Pulla Michael Real   Carolin Rekar Munro  
Chaseten Remillard   Wendy Rowe   Erich Schellhammer   Bernard Schissel  
Jean Slick   Marilyn Taylor Eugene Thomlinson Mike Thompson
Phillip Vannini   George Veletsianos Hassan Wafai   Jennifer Walinga  
Brian White   Rebecca Wilson Mah   Michael Young   Amy Zidulka  

(Present: 16 of 60 total Active Members)

CONTENTS:

  1. July Monthly Meeting called to order at 12: 15pm (President Kenneth Christie) 2
  2. Approval of June minutes:…………………………………………………………….. 2
  3. New Business:……………………………………………………………………………. 2

3.1 Vivian Forssman – Director, Centre for Teaching and Educational Technologies (CTET),      2

3.2 Query re: Automatic Continuing Appointments at RRU (Ken)…………………………….. 2

3.3 MAIS issue: MAIS Students added to classes that are already overly large (David)          3

  1. Old Business: None………………………………………………………………………. 4
  2. Regular Reports:…………………………………………………………………………. 4

5.1 Bargaining: (Wendy)……………………………………………………………………………………………. 4

5.2 Board of Governors: (Charles)…………………………………………………………………………….. 4

5.3 Academic Council: (Rick)……………………………………………………………………………………… 4

5.4 CUFA-BC: (Ken)………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4

5.5 Website: (Will)…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4

5.6 Social: (Geoff/Catherine)……………………………………………………………………………………… 5

5.7 Grievance Report: (David)………………………………………………………………………………….. 5

5.8 Health & Safety: (Rick)………………………………………………………………………………………… 5

  1. Other Business:………………………………………………………………………….. 5
  2. 1 Special Guest: Dr. Vivien Forssmann, Director of CTET………………………………………. 5
  3. Adjournment at 1:35 pm:………………………………………………………………. 5

 

 

 

1.     July Monthly Meeting called to order at 12: 15pm (President Kenneth Christie)

2.     Approval of June minutes:

Moved by George – seconded by Geoff.

All in favour.

3.     New Business:

3.1 Vivian Forssman – Director, Centre for Teaching and Educational Technologies (CTET),

Is coming at 1PM to talk about new changes in teaching and educational technologies at RRU. (Faculty wishing to suggest additional speakers at upcoming RRUFA monthly meetings should contact Ken.)

3.2 Query re: Automatic Continuing Appointments at RRU (Ken)

Ken asked whether faculty would agree to having new members of faculty, with tenure at their previous institution, be given an automatic continuing appointment at RRU?

 

Ken: at Joint Committee on the Administration of the Collective Agreement (JCOAA) there was a discussion on this point and there were mixed feelings: He reported that the Admin perspective was that an outstanding candidate with tenure at their previous institution should receive automatic tenure with out a probationary contract. When Ken made the comment that this was unusual – HR said they can just make the decision regardless. Ken: Section 18.1 of CA – has descriptions of appointments – but no policy on this…

Ken reported that 30 min later he got a call saying HR won’t do this in future… since this would would result in conflict… Perhaps the appropriate thing for such candidates would be to shorten the probation period… instead of 5 only 2 years…

 

 

Marilyn: school appoints but continuing appointment required colleagues..

Geoff: market adjustment stipend on top of Assistant Professor status.

Ken: knows of a case where a committee made up of junior faculty members and admin members are hiring a full faculty member…Something that was inappropriate.

 

 

Rick: when you leave a university, tenure does not travel with you – this is negotiated when you come to new place. Hiring is a problem. We don’t often have input into hiring committees to talk to candidates ahead of time…

 

George: In a technical unit – people may leave if they don’t have tenure…

 

Comment: We need a probationary model – to see if the new faculty member is a fit for this university and Learning & Teaching Model. There is, unfortunately, no gracious exit.

 

Ken: Perhaps for such individuals we could reduce probationary period from 5 to 2 years?

 

Simon – I don’t think we want entitlement at RRU. Do we really want prima donna academics here? They may be better off at another university… Good filter to have probationary period.

 

Ken: Automatic continuing contracts would create inequality among faculty…

 

Rick: tenure is about quality of scholarship; have demonstrated quality of academic work as a scholar and likely teacher as well… Difference place – have had people leave because they did not fit…

 

Marilyn: we want people to come because they like RRU; not because they can play off people… Probation is a good screening device.

 

David: New CA says: Faculty member may apply for permanent position within 18 months prior to end of contract, or in exceptional circumstances with VP-A. We could respond here that we are not comfortable waiving probation. We could put into MOU a fast-track process.

 

Mike: You could work faster if you make a special case with Steve.

 

Eugene: We are already there but we don’t have to add anything in to CA… It already requires them to go through a process…

 

Mike: if the prospective faculty really is a star elsewhere, he/she should be able to work through this…

 

David: current language adequate – any school or dean can bring attention to clause for exceptional treatment.

 

There was a general feeling of opposition to no probation for new hires…

 

3.3 MAIS issue: MAIS Students added to classes that are already overly large (David)

Eva has also consulted on this: if an over-large class results from the addition of MAIS students, there is no appropriate systemic response to support faculty teaching this over-large class. Eva experienced this with 12-15 MAIS students brought in…What to do? Can we approach admin?

Jo:We already have this…

 

Eva: description of what a TA can do…When do you split classes?

40 program students + 16 MAIS students… 2 issues… David: we have used Markers in over-large classes…

Eva: Grading is excluded… As core faculty – if you have 40 students online – you are entitled to TA and with 30 in F2F… But splitting handled differently…

 

Jo – need to amend what we already have.

Eva – 1/3 of class is MAIS students…

 

Brigitte: we in SoLS, cap the number of MAIS students in any given course and require 6 weeks notice… Creating special certificate for MAIS students…

 

David: but if we do this, we are then treating MAIS as second class students…

 

Leslie: The benefit is that if we have MAIS students we can’t cancel a course…

Eugene: not only class size but numbers of international students in the course needs to be considered in mink…

 

4. Old Business: None

5.     Regular Reports:

5.1 Bargaining: (Wendy)

nothing to report.

 

5.2 Board of Governors: (Charles)

Charles: nothing to report

 

5.3 Academic Council: (Rick)

Rick: Nothing to report. AC meets next in July.

 

5.4 CUFA-BC: (Ken)

Ken: Nothing to report

5.5 Website: (Will)

Nothing to report

5.6 Social: (Geoff/Catherine)

Nothing to report

5.7 Grievance Report: (David)

No news – things seem to be quiet

5.8 Health & Safety: (Rick)

Nothing to report

6.     Other Business:

6. 1 Special Guest: Dr. Vivien Forssmann, Director of CTET.

Ken: Introduction of Vivien, who discussed her research with faculty use of technologies.

[With apologies, I had to leave to continue to teach in my residency after lunch so could not stay for Vivien’s section of the meeting. There were no notes for this section of the meeting.

7.     Adjournment at 1:35 pm:

Moved to adjourn: Matt.

 

Recorder: Niels Agger-Gupta (except for Vivien Forssman section)